On this day in History - October 12

1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute.

1901 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt officially changes the name of the “Executive Mansion” to the White House.

1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Boston Children’s Hospital.

1933 – The U.S. Department of Justice acquires the military prison on Alcatraz Island, beginning its transformation into the famous federal penitentiary.

1964 – The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1, the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew and the first crewed spaceflight without pressure suits.

1979 – Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is first published.